Just in case his 6,000 words weren't enough, he also took questions from reporters ahead of time. Along with getting first crack at naming the unusual document — BuzzFeed went with the "Zuck Doctrine," while Recodechose "Mark Manifesto" — journalists were able to tease a bit more information out of its author.

Here are 14 of the most revealing moments from their interviews.

He's an ambitious guy.

Image: Jeff Chiu/AP/REX/Shutterstock

1. Donald Trump wasn’t the “trigger”

Zuckerberg consistently refused to talk about Donald Trump, who looms like a nameless ghost over his opus.

But much of the subject matter on which he touches — political discourse, globalism, facts — has a lot to do with Trump's rise to power.

Still, Zuckerberg told Recode's Kara Swisher that Trump wasn't the catalyst for his political awakening.

"No one single event triggered this,” he told the outlet. “I have been thinking about these things for a long time ... my views have just become more nuanced."

2. Zuckerberg does not want to usurp the government

No, Facebook doesn't literally want to take over the world, Zuckerberg insists.

“Zuckerberg himself admits that his company’s response — and indeed the company itself — is a work in progress,” he told Backchannel.

5. Facebook wants you to meet others on the platform

Facebook has always talked a big game about connecting the world, but, as we were emphatically reminded recently, it often does the opposite: it inherently pushes people into political opinion bubbles.

Zuckerberg says he wants to make tools that lead users to encounter "unlikely people."

Per Recode:

Thus, a push to provide more tools for unlikely people to connect around more areas and perhaps even push more people to do this on Facebook. “The best communities in the world have leaders,” he said.

6. It will take A WHILE

As you might have guessed, saving the world doesn't happen overnight.

“You can't have that happen and not to do everything we can to make that not happen,” Zuckerberg told Recode. “We will not have this tech ready for a while, but once you have the ability to understand what content is about, you have the ability to unlock that.”

7. He's really into long-term goals

What a surprise.

“One of my favorite quotes is this Bill Gates quote, that ‘people overestimate what they can get done in two years and underestimate what they can get done in 10 years.’ And that’s an important mindset that I hope more people take today,” he told the Associated Press.

8. Zuckerberg wants to "get rid of" bad people … from Facebook

Zuckerberg says he wants to use AI to root out people using the platform to do nefarious things like recruit terrorists or post suicide videos. The company recently put some of that power towards identifying advertising discrimination.

“Right now we’re trying to figure out if we can build AI systems to identify anyone who is using our networks for that so we can get rid of them and alert the right people,” he told Backchannel.

Zuckerberg runs the place, and even he can't escape the torrent of news on Trump.

“It’s a good amount,” he told Backchannel.

10. Zuckerberg is "so worried" about "sensationalism in media"

After months of categorically denying Facebook's fake news problem or journalistic responsibility, Zuckerberg is suddenly concerned about people being well-informed.

“Even if we eliminated all misinformation, people would just emphasize different sets of facts to fit their polarized opinions,” he told TechCrunch. “That’s why I’m so worried about sensationalism in media.”

"Over time, our community will identify which sources provide a complete range of perspectives so that content will naturally surface more.”

To date, the company has relied on a few vague excuses to explain the removal of politically significant content, including “glitch,” “technical issues,” and “error.” Asked if he thought the world would benefit from hearing in a more transparent fashion why Facebook makes decisions to take down certain content, Zuckerberg replied, “Yeah,” and then paused for effect. “There’s a lot of things that we need to get better on in this [area].””

13. He'd rather not talk about China

Zuckerberg mentioned tailoring Facebook policies to specific locales, but he didn't want to say whether that means the company will bow to censorship and launch in China.

“The general philosophy is that we want everyone to be able to say as much as they can and have as little as possible get blocked,” he told Backchannel, without addressing the country specifically.

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